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The Muses
}}The Muses were a set of nine clanks created over 200 years ago by legendary master spark, Van Rijn, for The Storm King. They were designed to offer advise and inspiration not just to him, but to all who interacted with them, although said advice often tends to unhelpfully cryptic. Only four of the Muses have been named in-comic, but the names of all nine muses and their likenesses appear on a Foglio sketch for the card game Pairs. 1) Orotine 2) Mawu 3) Artimo 4) Tinka 5) Otilia 6) Contasia 7) Liza 8) Moxana 9) Prende. Hiding in plain sight Following the fall of the Storm King, the muses needed to hide, as they were an irresistible lure to other Sparks, who wished to disassemble them in order to find out how they worked. Since Van Rijn was exceptionally Sparky, this has not met with much success. Tinka and Moxana hid undisguised in plain sight by connecting themselves with traveling shows, most recently Master Payne's Circus of Adventure, and pretending to be Muse copies. Desperation due to the condition of his sister prompted Tarvek to commandeer Tinka from the Circus three years prior to the start of the narrative, leading to him building an imperfect but impressive copy of Tinka to be operated by his sister from her life-support pod. Tinka was damaged afterward as Tarvek's father 'examined' her, but when the Circus returned to Sturmhalten, she was able to bring Moxana and Van Rijn's notes to Tarvek, recognizing him as the new Storm King. Tinka ended up being beheaded by the resident Geisters; following the Battle of Sturmhalten, Moxana's location and condition remain unknown. Otilia hid involuntarily in the body of the construct Von Pinn aboard Castle Wulfenbach, guiding and protecting the children, most notably Gil and Tarvek, while her Van Rijn body remained concealed in the subterranean Castle Heterodyne lair of Lucrezia Mongfish Heterodyne. The mind inside the body was a copy or piece of the much vaster Castle Heterodyne controlling intellect. During Agatha's eventful visit to the castle, the clank-body suffered severe physical damage, and the Castle-mind was transferred back to the Castle-structure proper, while Otilla's mind was moved to a Fun-Sized Mobile Agony and Death Dispenser. This new(ish) clank, and the pieces of her original body both remain inside the (mostly) time-frozen Castle Heterodyne. Prende was eventually discovered to be hiding in an ex-Corbettite artifact-vault under Paris, guarding the time-frozen Storm King. When released, he set off in search of his sword, with Prende in tow. Following his destruction, it remains unknown who (if anyone) ended up in possession of Prende. Apart from the possibly-apocryphal image shown above, the specific fate of the other Muses remains unknown. There also exists in the possession of The Immortal Library another humanoid clank called The Muse of Vengeance, about which little is yet known. In a response to the Muses, an unnamed old-school Heterodyne made his own collection of humanoid clanks, the Eleven Deadly Sins. The Enigma Notes added to Van Rijn's notebook appear to identify the Enigma as the Muse of Time, but said notes were apparently not written by Van Rijn. Nothing resembling the Enigma appears in the panorama of the muses. Further notes found in the Hermitorium state that Van Rijn did not build the creature he calls the Muse of Time, contrarily to the other Muses. Instead, after many years of confusing but informative conversations with her, he captured her in an (unsuccessful) attempt to learn the secret of eternal life, and she stayed a prisoner for roughly 200 years. It's therefore unlikely that the Muse of Time is part of the set of nine, as those were created by Van Rijn for the Storm King. The muses may have been reverse-engineered from the captured entity, or merely built using information she provided. However there are also hints that Prende may be the Muse of Time, given the story of "Prende's Lantern." Comparison to the classical muses The picture on the west inner tympanum of Tarsus HallSee of Transylvania Polygnostic makes the Muses look as if they were intended to mimic the classical muses in form and function, with each Muse assigned a particular area of expertise. Tinka is obviously the "Muse of dance and movement." The winged muse Otilia has specifically called herself the "Muse of Protection", while Moxana is evidently the "Muse of Mystery". These do not have obvious classical equivalents. Mawu and Lisa (or Liza) are the names of a Dahomean creator goddess and god. They are associated with the sun and moon, and are sometimes described as a single hyphenated and hermaphroditic being. Prende is the Albanian goddess of love, sharing Friday as a sacred day with Aphrodite and Venus. Outside World Although writers accounted the Muses in Greek mythology as anywhere from one (Mousa) to three (Memory, Practice and Song) to four (Heart-delighting, Song, Beginning and Meditation) to seven to nine ΜΟΥΣΑΙ, eventually Hesiod, naming them, settled the count of nine Muses adopted by later Europan cultures. They were: (The above information is excerpted from Wikipedia. See that article for more detail.) Muses on Murals Mouse over the a muse for her name. Clicking on a muse will link to her page if she has one. Image:TPUMusesOnMurals.png‎|600px|thumb|right|The nine muses and a Heterodyne. poly 364 50 341 100 320 47 134 93 103 132 27 113 153 36 343 7 518 32 663 98 613 114 509 60 482 139 431 33 Otilia poly 164 176 216 167 218 102 190 78 133 93 10 298 118 354 168 263 Contasia poly 169 173 221 164 266 167 296 231 249 285 265 338 203 369 123 351 173 260 Prende poly 227 93 222 167 267 170 306 234 294 140 296 70 247 61 Artimo poly 346 106 357 231 305 235 293 141 295 71 321 57 Mawu poly 346 108 357 233 420 229 399 176 408 123 395 67 363 52 Liza poly 470 126 420 229 399 176 408 123 395 67 430 33 Orotine poly 466 129 400 281 439 362 502 363 534 298 481 154 Moxana poly 513 67 657 154 554 350 480 153 Tinka poly 306 231 384 240 442 398 240 397 273 317 Agatha desc bottom-left Category:Clanks Category:Greek Mythology Category:Legendary Characters Category:Master Payne's Circus of Adventure Category:Muses